As major studios debate when to put their movies online, streamers are already ahead of the game, scoring massive watch times from global audiences. Netflix leads the way, with hundreds of millions of people spending hundreds of millions of hours watching the shows it produces. But what are they watching?

What Netflix is releasing now are the numbers behind the TV shows and movies that they make in-house—so you won't see any titles that didn't come directly from them. Netflix has released a few lists in the past, but they were just lists of how many people watched at least two minutes of a show or movie.

That felt like it was artificially inflated. I know if I turn something off in two minutes, I don't tell people I watched it. So what did Netflix release? They came with top 10 lists that covered the mass amount of hours something was watched over the first 28 days online. 

Let's check it out. 

What Are the Most Viewed TV Shows on Netflix? 

Here are the Netflix top 10 series by total view hours in the first 28 days: 

  1. Bridgerton, season 1 -- 625 million hours
  2. Money Heist, part 4 -- 619 million hours
  3. Stranger Things 3 -- 582 million hours
  4. The Witcher, season 1 -- 541 million hours
  5. 13 Reasons Why, season 2 -- 496 million hours
  6. 13 Reasons Why, season 1 -- 476 million hours
  7. You, season 2 -- 457 million hours
  8. Stranger Things 2 -- 427 million hours
  9. Money Heist, part 3 -- 426 million hours
  10. Ginny & Georgia, season 1 -- 381 million hours

What Are the Most Viewed Movies on Netflix? 

For movies, here are the Netflix top 10 movies by total view hours in the first 28 days: 

  1. Bird Box -- 282 million hours
  2. Extraction -- 231 million hours
  3. The Irishman -- 215 million hours
  4. Kissing Booth 2 -- 209 million hours
  5. 6 Underground -- 205 million hours
  6. Spenser Confidential -- 197 million hours
  7. Enola Holmes -- 190 million hours
  8. Army of the Dead -- 187 million hours
  9. The Old Guard -- 186 million hours
  10. Murder Mystery -- 170 million hours

What Did We Learn? 

So what can we learn from all of this stuff? The most obvious thing is that longer series and movies will have higher numbers.

Other than that, it's easy to see which titles are popular. If you're at all active on social media, then you know everyone is talking about these titles in the months they debut.

But I wonder if they have staying power. It would be interesting to see where these numbers go a year later.

You can also see that second and third seasons are popular for shows. You hook them, and a lot of people stay. But Netflix also notoriously cancels shows early, usually after two seasons.

What are some of your biggest takeaways here? Let me know in the comments. 

netflixstreamerstreaming warsbox office
Movies & TV